


No Such Thing as Soft Science

by st_aurafina



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen discovers there's more than one kind of Sanctuary</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Such Thing as Soft Science

**Author's Note:**

  * For [holdouttrout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdouttrout/gifts).



Helen and Charlotte meet up now and then, in the weeks and months after Grand Comore. Helen is pulling together a century-long master plan; it's a remarkable relief to meet Charlotte whenever she's in Toronto. They eat Italian in a dim little bistro heated by a wood-fired oven, they talk about lemurs, they fall into the bed in Charlotte's loft. If there's time in the morning, Helen cooks eggs and bacon on Charlotte's otherwise unused stove top. Charlotte has taken to keeping supplies in the refrigerator, since the first time, when Helen had been so obviously baffled at the lack of food and cooking utensils.

"I eat at the university," she says, while Helen opens and closes drawers in confusion. "I'm hardly ever here long enough for groceries."

Helen crouches down to peer into a cupboard, as if that will magically make a frying pan or kettle appear. "But, darling, how on earth do you make the tea?"

The next day, a box arrives, postmarked Old City. Charlotte unwraps it and laughs, then hangs the frying pan up on the wall like a piece of art. At a flea market, she finds a teapot and a stack of pretty but mismatched cups and saucers. It looks like this is a thing, she tells herself, and puts them away for the next time she gets a call.

At each visit, Helen is always ready with a goodbye speech at the back of her mind. This can't go on forever, not the way that her plans are coming together. Sometimes, after Charlotte has unburdened her ambitions and hopes, the grants and positions she's applied for, the people she's hoping to work with one day, Helen wonders if she should pick up the phone and drop Charlotte's name into the right ears. If Charlotte were back in Madagascar, it would be easy to let distance and inconvenience eat away at the connection between them. It's not like Helen hasn't had to manage relationships like this before. Longevity teaches you certain life skills. In the morning, though, there's the teapot and the frying pan, and Charlotte all rumpled from sex and sleep. Next time, Helen promises herself, just one more time.

Charlotte, because she's a good scientist, figures it out all by herself. Over breakfast, nibbling on a piece of toast, she eyes Helen. "Jane Goodall gave a lecture here last month."

Helen pauses with her cup halfway to her mouth. "Oh? How is Jane? We haven't spoken in a while."

Charlotte raises an eyebrow. "So she told me. She has this slide with a photo of Leakey. I can just make you out in the background."

"Good old Leakey," says Helen, carefully. It might still be all right; there are dozens of Leakeys.

"Louis Leakey. At the Royal Anthropological Institute. In 1933." Charlotte takes a bit of her toast and speaks with her mouth full. "I think she puts the slide into her lectures to snag the people who know you."

Helen laughs at that, and sips her tea. "Well, there's a reason Jane and I don't talk. She never did like to share."

"She warned me," Charlotte says, suddenly serious. "She said that you always have an agenda." She smiles, wicked again. "She also gave me the impression that you like to seduce innocent research scientists, which I totally believe."

"I'm terribly sorry, but you kissed me first!" Helen says, in mock-outrage, glad for the escape.

Charlotte reaches out and takes her hand. "I know you have important work. I've never asked about it."

"Please don't." For all Helen has been preparing for the end, this hurts. It's a familiar pain, though: people are always being left behind.

Charlotte keeps talking, a speech as rehearsed as Helen's unsaid goodbye. "I just wanted to say that whatever it is, this work, there's always a place here. Wherever I am - and whenever, I suppose, since you haven't changed much since the thirties - if you need some breathing space, come find me. I'll always give you a place to hide out."

"A sanctuary, then?" Helen's voice is thick, and she takes another sip of tea while she wills the tears away.

The significance of the word is lost on Charlotte, of course, but the emotional weight of it rings true. Charlotte's face creases into a smile, and she reaches out to stroke Helen's cheek. "Exactly. When you want sanctuary, I'm here. For as long as I'm here." She nabs a piece of toast from Helen's plate with lightning speed born of student living. "But you're doing the cooking."

Helen sits back in her chair, and pushes the butter dish in Charlotte's direction. The sun is streaming in through the window in Charlotte's tiny kitchen, and everything feels full of hope.


End file.
